The Lenape Media Center is filled with books on various topics and technology, allowing students to unleash their creativity. Behind the counter is Ms. Fauver, who manages this all. This year, our librarian, Ms. Fauver, has been coming less to Lenape. She has been working here for the past 19 years. She goes to other schools in the Lenape District, like Shawnee, that lack librarians. By doing this, she sacrifices some days that the library is open at Lenape.
“My favorite part at working at Lenape is working with our awesome staff, and I always said that I was so lucky,”
Ms. Fauver is in charge of the book collection here at Lenape and is constantly adding new books. In addition to this, she does many projects with various classes. She does class projects for many Arts and Music, English, Business, History, Family & Consumer Science, Vocational Ed, Life & Study Skills, JROTC, Health, Science, Technology, and World Languages classes. For example, the health classes have research projects on drugs where Ms. Fauver helps find factual information using databases and technology to enhance the projects. In Business Communications & Computer Applications, research papers are part of the curriculum. Ms. Fauver came in to teach us how to use Noodle Tools to cite our work and how to write a research paper. Information Literacy is a big part of being a librarian. Just last year, she was able to work with over 400 classes and met with 3-4 classes a day.
“One of our main goals is to make lifelong readers,” she says.
Previously, the library was where students would go to for a loaner computer, but now, since the days the library is open are shorter, they can be found at the counseling center. The Media Center has desktops and printers where students and teachers can have access to platforms like Microsoft Word and Excel as well as being able to print from the library’s many printers. Though Ms. Fauver does not specifically teach Microsoft Applications, she manages all the desktops.
Due to the LRHSD School budget cuts, our district had to remove many things in order to account for the cuts. Many librarian positions have been eliminated across the U.S. Between 2015 and 2019, 20% of librarians declined. 1 in 5 schools, the librarian position was eliminated completely.
“I am hoping at some point that the funding does come back and we start to realize the importance of school libraries,” says Ms. Fauver
If Ms. Fauver was at Lenape for longer periods, she would like to initiate more creative projects for the many classes she goes to. During these classes, she teaches students how to use information databases and how to cite sources that have correct information to apply to their projects. She says that the biggest impact was not being able to work with all the classes and being able to fit them in her schedule.
Recently, New Jersey and some other states have passed an Information Literacy Law that requires schools to teach children about how to find correct information both online and through books. The New Jersey Education website mentions that schools must teach students how to interpret, compare, critically evaluate, authenticate, and synthesize information in all contexts and settings, both inside and outside of school.
“The other role that we have in terms of that instruction and teaching students how to be able to process and decipher information and use it for now and into the future, I hope that that gets recognized even more,” says Ms. Fauver.